2012 Napier Awardees
Celia Neustadt - Pomona College
Her enrollment in a Baltimore inner-city magnet high school gave Celia an intense exposure to major social and economic shifts under way in that American urban center. She became especially interested in the problematic changes that made Baltimore’s Inner Harbor area a major tourist destination. For her Napier project, Celia recruited and trained a team of ten high school students who conducted interviews among people who were excluded and otherwise negatively impacted by this “commodification” of the area. With the result of her team's research, they worked to establish a permanent space for local Baltimore youth there.
Learn more about Inner Harbor Project.
Courtney Miller – Pomona College
A vocational commitment to the public health field, together with study and internships in Latin America, have given Courtney a strong interest in providing safe drinking water for rural populations in Peru. “It is a fact,” says Courtney, “that 884 million people on earth do not currently have access to safe drinking water,” and many of them die from diarrhea and other waterborne diseases. For her Napier project, Courtney initiated and managed a pilot program for the production and distribution of ceramic water filters in the Puno region of southern Peru. Working closely with local groups, she helped them take the key initial steps leading to the planned establishment of a small, locally run factory for making the filters.
Follow Courtney on her blog: http://millerwaterblog.wordpress.com